Bears’ future depends on defensive revival

Monday

Dec 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMDec 29, 2008 at 11:30 PM

Lovie Smith praised rookie running back Matt Forte, tight ends Greg Olsen and Desmond Clark and the Bears offensive line and was tickled by the development of quarterback Kyle Orton and receiver Devin Hester. But he didn't commend the defense.

Matt Trowbridge

Lovie Smith praised rookie running back Matt Forte, tight ends Greg Olsen and Desmond Clark and the Bears offensive line and was tickled by the development of quarterback Kyle Orton and receiver Devin Hester.

“The arrow is pointed in the right direction. I like the core we have been dealing with,” Chicago’s coach said a day after the Bears (9-7) missed the NFL playoffs by losing their season finale 31-24 in Houston.

That left only one position on offense (Chicago’s second-leading wide receiver, Rashied Davis, finished with only 445 yards) Smith didn’t commend.

But it left the entire defense out.

Starting with supposed anchors Brian Urlacher and Tommie Harris.

The Bears gave both lucrative contract extensions in the offseason, yet Urlacher finished with just 107 tackles, only two more than his career low of 105, set in 2004 when he only played in nine games. Tommie Harris had five sacks and a career-low 34 tackles in 14 games.

Urlacher was the only player Smith singled out for criticism without prodding in Monday’s season-ending news conference at Halas Hall.

“Brian, at times, played well this past year,” Smith said, “and other times he needs to pick it up a little bit.”

A year ago, despite battling back and neck injuries, Urlacher had five sacks and five interceptions. This year, despite being in good health, he had no sacks and two interceptions.

“We hope he can be the player that he was,” Smith said. “Brian is still a young football player. We expect him to get back to Pro Bowl form. … We have seen what Brian can do. There is no reason to think him that with dedicating himself and us doing our job coaching, he can’t get back.”

The same goes true of Harris.

“We would like for Tommie to play at a high Pro Bowl level whenever he is out on the football field,” Smith said.

Smith said the Bears will continue to substitute frequently for Harris next year in order to protect his balky knee.

“I liked the plan we had of taking some of his time away,” Smith said, “but there is no reason to think Tommie can’t get back to being the same dominant player that we’ve seen. At times this year he was that.”

“At times” seems to be the Bears’ mantra.

Olsen spoke of how the offense often started and finished strong, but struggled in the middle of games.

“The spark is there,” Olsen said. “We just need to keep it going.

“It wasn’t good enough, but as the year went on, we definitely made some progress.”

Hester, Forte and Orton give the Bears hope at three positions that have often been problem areas.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who stepped up this year,” defensive end Adewale Ogunleye said. “Hopefully, it won’t be too much of a wasted season for those guys.”

That seems to depend on a veteran-laden defense getting back to playing the way it did when it led the Bears to back-to-back NFC North titles in 2005-06. The biggest difference this year?

“Our want-to wasn’t where it should be,” Ogunleye said.

Why did the Bears’ defensive desire slip?

“I don’t know. I don’t know why it’s not where it should be,” Ogunleye said. “But no matter what the scheme is, when you have the mindset that you are going to impose your will on an offense, you will succeed. This year we just didn’t have it.”